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No excuses for no oppn costings: Swan

Treasurer Wayne Swan has challenged the opposition to reveal how much its election promises are going to cost once the federal budget numbers are released in May.

Mr Swan says the government will account for its big spending on education and the national disability insurance scheme through savings in the budget on May 14.

With the federal election date set for September 14, the opposition has no excuse not to reveal its costed policies after the budget is brought down, the treasurer told ABC TV.

"Failure to do so will very clearly indicate what their agenda is, which is not to put out detailed policies based on forecasts based on either information from the budget or the Parliamentary Budget Office," he said.

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The opposition's strategy was to release as little of their costings as possible, he said.

"They're out there saying that they will have lower deficits, lower taxes and of course more spending," Mr Swan said.

"That is just a magic pudding."

Shadow treasurer Joe Hockey has said the May budget numbers will be questionable and the coalition would rely only on figures from the pre-election fiscal outlook (PEFO).

The departments of Treasury and Finance will release the PEFO 10 days after the writs for the election have been issued on August 12.

Mr Hockey said on Wednesday the coalition had submitted more than 50 initiatives to the Parliamentary Budget Office for costing, but it was struggling to get through them.

Finance Minister Penny Wong said there were no easy savings measures.

Ms Gillard said on Wednesday the government would announce savings in the May budget to pay for its investment in education and the national disability insurance scheme.

Senator Wong said areas where Labor had found past savings gave an indication of the party's approach in paying for future policies.

Previous savings had been made with changes to the private health insurance rebate, removing various tax breaks, such as the dependent spouse tax offset, and amending the arrangements for fringe benefits tax, Senator Wong said.

"They are yielding benefits to the budget now, but more importantly, they will continue to yield benefits to the budget in years to come to enable the room to fund other priorities," she told ABC TV on Wednesday.